If you spend much time in the blogosphere, perhaps you’ve noticed the recent proliferation of Facebook “like” buttons, and similar social media plugins on blogs.
Back in 2005, it was all about having a line of “feed reader” buttons on your blog. Then around 2007 or so, bookmarking on del.icio.us and a slew of others was all the rage. Then 2009 was the year of “tweet this” buttons, and 2010 has been the year of FB “like” buttons.
The other thing we’ve seen a lot of this year is Facebook-integrated commenting on blogs and product launch pages.
My first question is…
Are social media “sharing” plugins effective?
Between my own experience, and a fair amount of research that I did before writing this post, I’d say that it’s overrated.
Clearly, social media sharing CAN be effective. We’ve all heard stories of bloggers being rocketed from obscurity to temporary superstardom as a result of a “digg this” button, or other viral mechanism. However, those examples are few and far-between compared to the countless bloggers who are putting these buttons on their blogs.
In other words, adding social media sharing capability to your blog is not inherently going to result in more web traffic to your site. Those plugins can help, but they’re only one piece of the puzzle. Here are some other pieces that will increase your chances of success:
1) You have to start with compelling content that people will WANT to share. This is critical, and you can’t fake it. Sure, you could game the system by using robots or overseas workers with fake accounts to post your content to social media sites. But that won’t result in meaningful or profitable traffic. The kind of traffic you desire is the kind that results from REAL people sharing your content and giving their vote of confidence.
2) You have to have a social media-using audience. Of course it helps that most of the world is now on Facebook. But still, not all those people are interested in sharing your stuff in their Facebook feeds. Here is a good article about Facebook “like” buttons, as they relate to your audience demographics and the nature of your content: Article on Problogger.net
3) Test it, just like you should test everything else on your site. For example, some bloggers have found the buttons get clicked more at the top of the post vs. the bottom. You can test sizes, location, various social sites, etc. It’s obvious that some social sites just aren’t getting used much anymore. I just checked, and I’ve received 66 bookmarks in del.icio.us from my readers over the past few years, yet it’s not unusual to get that many links from twitter or Facebook from a single post.
That brings me to my next question…
Is Facebook the most important social site to integrate with your blog?
From everything I’ve seen lately, the answer is yes.
The statistics are staggering. Facebook is sucking the life out of Internet users around the globe, and sucking traffic away from Google.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of those “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” situations. I’m not a big Facebook fan… in fact I deleted my personal account a few months ago. But I am a marketer, and if everyone is logged into Facebook all day long anyway, I might as well use that to my advantage.
So the question becomes…
How should I integrate Facebook with my blog?
A quick search on WordPress.org reveals 573 Facebook-related WordPress plugins.
Among those plugins are many “like” buttons, “share” buttons, comment plugins, syndication tools, photo galleries, and more.
For new blogs without much following, or if you’re struggling to get comments and interaction, I do recommend integrating Facebook commenting. Facebook users are accustomed to commenting on their friend’s posts, pics, etc, in Facebook. So when they see that same format on your blog, it makes it easy. The fact that they’re already logged into their Facebook account makes it even easier.
In addition to the ease of use for your readers, it also gives you the opportunity to get extra traffic. When a Facebook user comments on your blog, the comment ALSO appears in their Facebook feed, so all their friends can see it (and respond to it, like it, etc.). It’s a great model of viral marketing.
These factors are the reason why Facebook comments have been working so well for product launches lately (during the pre-launch phase). They allow the creation of a lot of perceived social proof, combined with a viral component.
Here are some cool-looking FB comment plugins:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-comments-for-wordpress/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-facebook-connect/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disqus-comment-system/
If you want to make your own comment box, you can use Facebook’s code:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments
If you do decide to enable Facebook commenting on your blog, I recommend using a plugin that still writes the comments to your WordPress database (out of the above, I know Disqus does this… not sure about the others). This way you still retain “ownership” of the conversation, and if you remove the plugin all your comments won’t disappear.
That having been said, there are some reasons you might not want to use Facebook commenting on your blog. In my case, I already have a loyal readership, and I prefer to keep the conversation inside the gates of my own community. Some may call it anti-social, but for me it’s simply a business decision.
Another reason you might not want to use Facebook comments on your blog is that it may “cheapen” the perception of your blog. While Facebook would love for all of us to blur the line between Facebook and the rest of the web, I’d rather keep my website a “destination” rather than just a piece of the conversation.
Maybe I’m being a snob about the commenting, and maybe I’ll change my mind in the future. We’ll see.
In the mean time, I’d still like to tap into the viral nature of Facebook to gain additional readership. So while I’ve opted not to use Facebook comments, I’ve added a Facebook “like” button to the bottom of my posts.
For the past few years, I’ve used the ShareThis plugin. The ShareThis plugin (along with other aggregators of social sharing, such as AddThis), was a great idea. It integrated many social sharing options into one easy button.
However, it didn’t seem to get used very much. So I’ve replaced my ShareThis button with a simple Facebook “like” button. There are literally hundreds of Facebook “like” plugins, so this isn’t a recommendation per-se, but the one that I’m using for now is called Simple Facebook Like Widget
What do you think?
What are your thoughts about Facebook and other social media plugins for WordPress, which ones do you use, and what has been your experience with them?
Also, would you prefer that I integrate Facebook commenting on this blog? I’m open to a change of heart.
Please post your comments below using my old-fashioned WordPress comment form. Oh, and be sure to hit the FB “like” button if you found this to be an interesting post 😉
Have a great day!
I’ve always found social media stuff to be ineffective – most people on these sites are simply not buyers.
My best source of traffic is still SEs and JVs.
More than that, I find facebook to be exhausting. Add to that the privacy concerns with such sites, and you can see why I have yet to take Facebook seriously.
Don’t get me wrong though – I think FB is great for branding campaigns. 99.9% of IMers though should be focusing on buyer traffic and not branding themselves.
P.S. – Thanks for the DVD 🙂
I think it is a case of if you can’t beat them join them. I think facebook will soon start an email service and a search engine as they already have groups, facebook pages, business pages etc.
I can only think of about 6 people I know who either don’t or won’t use facebook.
It seems to be here whether we like it or not, but there are also a ton of scams even within facebook already. People pretending to be who they are not, facebook friend blasters, and all sorts of black hat going on there.
There is also the delicate balance of blending social activity with business activity. People can easily stop reading your stuff if everything is an advert.
Eric, it could be a good resource if you know what your doing, and I don’t. But I am trying not get to involved yet, list building is main concern now, although I have posted some conversation and not to many links to aff, but I do want to make a blog and post it where people will get interested if they see something interesting about me. We’ll see later.
Eric,
While I can see some value to what you’ve said, the biggest drawback is Facebook – you have to be a member in order for any of this to work. Facebook is the most insecure service/application I’ve run across on the Web, and I’ve been here since before there was a Web. I’ve seen the Web develop, and consider Facebook to be on the seamier side of that development.
You may have a different outlook, of course. If so, I pray that you do not suffer from it, but Facebook, in my estimation, is evil.
I can see the power of a FB commenting pluggin on your wordpress site. I see a lot of those launch sites using this and enticing the readers to comment by giving away prizes randomly to a commenter. Along with good content or a controversial topic, it can add to the incentive to make a comment if not just for the remote possibility of winning a prize.
I have seen some of these comments pop up on some of my friends status which had led me to the check out the blog source that the comment originated from.
Its ability to drive traffic back to the blog would depend on how interesting the comment was. Otherwise, it won’t lead to anyone following back.
I myself would be curious to see a friend make a comment on a subject that was of personal interest and I would be inclined to see what the fuss was about.
Eric,
Like yourself, I have never really been big on Facebook. Like other Social Media sites, there are those that simply use it to chat to friends, & then there are the Internet Marketers, that are using it for their own purposes.
That said, it is a great tool that I am slowly comming around to using a little more. But it is not the only social network I use. I also use YouTube, Twitter, Digg, etc.
One plugin that I do like that can be customised for your Social Networking strategy is Social Follow.
Again, Thanks for the great advice & I will look into some of the plugins you have recommended.
To Your Success,
Rob Willis
Yes I like the article above. I think the viral aspect is the best available. Still I didn’t click the like button, I think the privacy aspect is missing. I don’t want that my vague “friends” know what I’m doing on the internet. The fact I’m into IM is still hidden from close friends as well until I have some kind of success online.
I still didn’t find out how I can share “liked content” with one list/group only, like other marketeers, friends, family, co-workers, club members etc….. It tends you need more than one account for that. For that reason I turned off “show what I like” completely in the FB privacy settings
The story goes FB will come up with a search engine as well, where the whole “like” philosophy is a huge parameter in terms of relevancy.
The same thing google tries to establish with the number and authority of backlinks.
I think this is going somewhere but not mature yet.
John
Hey Eric, I think that as far as facebook and others are concerned Social Media is the way of the future. It is up to the individual to decide witch one or all to use, but they should be implemented one way or another.
Good Stuff Eric…It is true facebook is taking a BIG portion of google’s advertising and traffic source but, it is still too early to tell who will become number one.
It is important to note it does not matter who wins…as we as marketers need to use both for our marketing purposes.
Paul
Personally, I am so busy with other things to do on line that it’s hard for me to find the time to use Facebook for business, let alone for socializing with family and friends. Maybe in the future, once my business is running on “autopilot,” utilizing Facebook might work. Remains to be seen, I guess 😀
I have heard of good results with Facebook for generating leads/downloads, but as you say; It’s all about content. Just “being on Facebook” isn’t the end all. But as another tool in the box, I do beleive it has its place.
Rick Boyle
It’s your life, own it!
Hi Eric,
I agree with you that Facebook is nowadays the trend to be integrated into blog. I am also not active in Facebook, but when I am using it, I am surprised the activity there. Even you update a status, people will comment it, like it without hours or minutes (using Mobile phone…
I think it is a good idea to put a ‘like’ button in the blog (like what you are doing), as this will help the post to go viral and people (at least the FB user) are more prone to the ‘like’ button than just commenting on the blog…
Recent launches are also heavily relying on social marketing to go viral! From my experience using FB, I am also ‘forced’ and get dragged into friends’ activities, such as they just join/like a group,etc…It just can’t be helped, I guess this is the power of FB.
Since you mentioned the like widget, I will also integrate it to my blog and see how it goes.
Cheers,
Ming Jong
Eric, It is comlplicated enough already, Who and when does one have time to read a million emails or just click through them.
Hi Eric,
There is advantages & disadvantages for people living in face book or others.
If we are looking world friends & get to know them closely, getting good tips for living, that should be proper for us to be connected, otherwise, most of us they are connected on wasting their precious time for knowledge’s, money, normally, we never realized.
People need to learn as how to manage their times as it’e really precious & it’s too late, when their names will be called for the last breathe that we have or chatting could be healthy if we are talking about life, thus helping the World to manage their intelligently.
We suggest, there could be better we really realize times is life as we need to take care very seriously.
Thanks Hitesh, and you’re welcome 🙂
While I am not using any of this on my own site, I have recommended Facebook to at least one of my clients.
To me the social media is a lot of work. If the client has adequate resources, I usually recommend the traditional methods of getting seen.
I will probably need to “eat my words”, but for now, maybe I’ll just keep watching.
To me, this is a fascinating approach to marketing and for many, it will probably work eventually.
Thanks for letting me review this and I have already referred this article to others.
Again, thanks.
…..Bruce
“People pretending to be who they are not, facebook friend blasters, and all sorts of black hat going on there.”
Absolutely. And I do recommend seeing the movie CATFISH, from an educational standpoint.
They certainly do seem to be at the forefront of privacy problems.
Good point, I need to remember to give away more prizes to my readers. Maybe I’ll give some away soon…
Cool, thanks for the tip. I just went to your site, and I noticed that Social Follow did slow down the load time of your site just a little, which is something I had noticed about ShareThis in the past also. It is something to keep in mind, because it can affect user experience, and SEO.
Exactly. I need to not let my opinion of certain social sites stop me from making money from them 😉
I would not mind having some select information reach my FB circle. Like you wrote I am not fully comfortable with everything I might write being “a part of the conversation”. Why follow a Blog if the content is on FB? It seems that the ideal would be to have FB act as one part of an overall strategy to build followers on a Blog.
.
What might work best to allow select or content that was especially liked? Does the like button serve this purpose?
.
Despite a multitude of setbacks I continue to follow, and learn from your lessons. Please continue.
.
Bob Cannon
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Social bookmarking sites are GREAT for backlinks. I use Zimbio, Digg, Twitter and StumbleUpon, Google Buzz and Yahoo Buzz. I don’t incorporate Facebook as my personal Facebook page has 960 of my friends on there and I DON’T want to spam them. As for creating a “business” Facebook page? Haven’t started one yet. Not sure if it’ll do any good. I still believe unique content and good authority backlinks are the way to go. I started my Internet Marketing Blog (click my name) 3 months ago and consistently get 120 people/day to it and it’s growing. I have 200+ posts/reviews and 90% of the content is unique. (from my own mind and fingers.) I get much of my traffic organically and alot through Zimbio and Digg. Twitter is a touch and go…take it or leave it. No sales come off it. If in the future I create a “like” button for my blog? I will update and let ya know how it goes.
Always great content Eric, always look forward to it.
I think it’s all relative in that your success with a social network largely depends on how present you are within that network.
I’m not an internet marketer as such, I sell my art online via ebay and I sell prints. I used to be able to sell 3-4 original artworks per month via ebay with repeat buyers. Now I’m no longer active on ebay and struggle to sell the art that I list occasionally.
I’ve heard of many artists that sell well through facebook and twitter. In interviews these people commonly say they enjoy these networks and love the interaction. Personally I haven’t had any success trying to do the same thing because I’m not that interested in the kind of interaction these networks offer.
I do think it’s worth installing like and share buttons for people who’s lives are more intertwined with the various networks but as they say… you only get out things, what you put in.
If you’re not present (interacting with your fans regularly) on Facebook you’re probably not going to have a great deal of success with it.
I have seen some marketers eliminate comments if you don’t do it through Facebook and that’s a “terrible” idea. I’m a marketer and have NOT ventured onto Facebook or MySpace as I saw them as “kids” networks where the under 40 crowd hangs out to do whatever they do.
I don’t like being excluded just because I don’t want an account somewhere where they “claim” to own all the content! I want to maintain my copyright and if you put anything ON the free “social networks”…they claim they own it and can do s they please…that is NOT a condition I want to agree to…and as a Business person I READ ALL contracts that would pertain to my rights. I think most click the box and agree without reading and some nasty things have happened on Facebook and MySpace that have hurt people who created the content that these 2 bullies decided to OWN and sell.
When my rights are protected…I’ll consider using the social networks but while they are not…I have stayed away. Perhaps your findings above will “push” me toward creating a profile…just NOT providing useful content there.
What insights would you offer after reading my comment, Eric? I’m more interested in protecting my Business rights and content than anything else.
I personally have yet to achieve any success whatsoever from any online source and that includes facebook though I also personally feel fb does have tremendous potential as a marketing tool if/when appropriately implemented despite numerous possible shortcomings.
Sooner or later we have to face the fact that if we don’t integrate with social media, we are going to get left behind. Facebook pages are apparently the latest craze. You can install a squeeze page/optin form on your Facebook page to build your list and develop relationships. The point about using social media in business is to avoid being too sales oriented. Be more human and personal and participate in discussions. Recommendations are better than sales pitches in social media.
A lady named Jo Barnes is showing people on Facebook how it’s done (for free). Just search for her on Facebook under the name Free Fan Page Templates. She’ll give you a “Starter Kit” including optin templates.
Well We are all trying to get traffic leads and sales. How many people use Facebook ? 5 million ?
Great place to get free traffic
Given I’ve only so many priority hours in the day, I’ll be leaving FB alone for the time being. While it’s obviously another possible income stream I’m having a hard time reconciling FB “friends” with business associates (?)
I confess I’ve never used Facebook and all the recent press stories of government regulators in various countries threatening them with legal action for breaching data privacy laws makes me very leery. Perhaps it’s better to stay away???
Great point
I have NO USE for FB.. period!
The ‘only’ reason I have a page is to stop the
constant nagging…. “Oh you just have to have
a FB Page… blah… blah… blah; so I got one
and posted that I WON’T be on it.
That shut them up… for now.
i started on ms ,broke kids,fb overrated for sure,i like ms better,but i do like te like button.
Hi eric, as i’m new to even website and wordpress blog, and as i have found out these plugins very use full to get more even traffic and good feelings that we got traffics and like our articles. We (lots of us) can’t pay $ for getting traffics to our websites. But we still can get buy using plugins like these to our blog. As i’m your e.mail subscriber to ericstips.com for up to a year, and read every e-mail that you sent to subscribers. Even i have subscribe to other internet marketers, but they are not likes to you that you are always posting great great tips! But others are sending the affiliate links. But i love your e-mails the most and wait whole the time that when will you post next tips. But for the fb i think it’s good for beginners to get their site more social. As they are saying here in Laos that fb is fashion.
I personally loved the article. Being new to the media I cannot verse an opinion whether or not you should use FB plugins. Notwithstanding, as a marketer there are 500 million pairs of eyes to possibly see your site.
I agree with one of the comments above about not wanting to spam my “friends” on FB, most of whom are former students or teaching colleagues. Even though I’m convinced my site is extremely beneficial in the world of learning, I’m still hesitant to push it too strongly to people I count as real-world friends.
Likely that is indicative of a lesser businessman psychic in my life, but I’d just feel better if that promotion happens naturally.
Finally, (and off topic) are you planning a lesson on how to get over a significant “slump” in cranking out content, pages and ads. I’m going through a phase of generating great ideas, but when it comes time to get those ideas into operation, things come to a molasses-like speed. Maybe it’s information overload, but it’s a very real syndrome.
Thanks for all the great help you have given to us.
Frankly, despite the many internet marketers who said they have success with FB, I haven’t. I use it once in a while just to keep in touch with people but I haven’t used it to sell stuff mainly because I don’t know how….
Im not a facebook fan. And no longer have an account that I use. I believe that people are there for other reasons and not in any buying mode. I don’t know how interested people are in any peripheral adds or like on facebook. I think people are more interested in saying how sunburnt they got today or what they are having for dinner not that that is bad just that people are in a different mode when they on facebook.
Hi Eric,
i do not think that FB or any other community websites to get involved with nowadays as, i have noticed an unusual increase in e-mails from so called FB subscribers or even friends in my in-box only to find that are virus’s and hacking your account and FB do not seem to be doing anything about it etc!
I also truelly think that most people in FB are not interested in anything but keeping up with their family and friends- but me i more worry about the e-mails from FB with the virus’s and have been considering cancelling my account there??/
Social media is way big. Over 60% of my traffic on my blogs comes from social media. The fact of it is, I believe it is way easier to get massive traffic from social media than SEO.
In a lot of ways, social media is passive too. Though not as much as SEO is.
Thanks for the post Eric, I was wondering what your thoughts were on the subject.
To life,
-Gregory
PS. Love your blog by the way, long-time reader first-time commenter 🙂
Thanks Eric. That said, most social networks allow you to add your blog’s RSS feed onto your profile page or into your status stream.
I may not be very personally present on facebook or twitter (or a handful of other networks) but every time I write a blog post the title of that post and a link automatically appears in my status stream of every network I have a profile with.
Automating your updates with your blog headlines has got to be better than maintaining an inactive profile.
I also forgot to say Eric- i have has even pornography come through into my in-box e-mail though pornogra from face book so it seems like not a place to be!!!
Eric, you hit the nail in the head with this post… and as usual you are testing, you never do something just because it is on vogue.
So,
1) doing something with just one element of social media it is not enough
2) expending yourself on almost all social media sites (over 500) is time consuming, cannot be done effectively by just one person, but can work
I decided not to do 2), so I stay with FB, twitter, Google Buzz (which disappointed me) and other 2-3 sites.
3) In my blogs I use plug-in Apture
http://www.apture.com/ which create a toolbar on top when you scroll a post, I have FB, Tweet, and email, you can see it in URLs at the bottom of my comment (but you have to scroll to see it), it is cute
4) It is producing some traffic but not as much as I need
5) what I learn is that long range Groups on FB are better vs Fan Pages, because we end up with targeted traffic
6) I never used FB comment, but you convince me to do it
Eric this is a great post, thanks a lot! I also agree with the article on problogger – demographic counts, and create different results per different niche
All the best Michaela
http://mobile-profit.com
http://michaelacernescu.com
By the way, I forgot to say that it is a facebook feature to automatically migrate posts from WP Blogs on FB groups/pages, I am using this for mobile profit group, it is working
Regards
Michaela
Hello Eric,
From a marketers perspective we probably should consider that it has market potential for many products and services. The fact that results are scattered and not achieved consistently only serves to illustrate that many current marketing strategies have not been adjusted to maximize ROI etc. This is usually the case with most new markets or even new approaches to old markets. That is why we test and analyze results. Early adapters and pioneering marketers risk little in virtual communities like facebook, so, perhaps, the only risk here is that associated with “missed opportunity” 🙂
I’m not a FaceBook fan but I do have a profile with about 800 “friends” (they are family for the most part, lol) and I just created a “fan” page. I think it had it’s first visitor today. It has to evolve a little from infancy before I advertise it.
However, I have been noticing these “like” buttons…, in fact I clicked on yours to see what it would do, 🙂
I think I’ll add the plugin to my posts too. But I’m not sure about the comments. Still I’ll probably test a plugin for that too as I don’t get a lot of comments on my blog.
Cool, thanks for the input
over 60%, that’s a lot!
Most of the spam that arrives in your inbox appearing to be from facebook, is not actually from facebook. The spammers try to LOOK like it it is from facebook to trick you into opening it and looking at it. But yeah, there’s a lot of sketchy stuff on facebook too. One of the reasons I closed my account.
Hey Eric,
Great post.. very thought provoking. I have yet to use FB for social marketing but I think if you wanted to use their paid features it might be a better option than Google. It is certainly cheaper. For me marketing is more about building backlinks and content than socializing, simply because I don’t have the time to be hanging out on FB, and I also think building backlinks and site authority is a better long term strategy anyway.
Cheers
John
http://www.forexmoneymarkets.com
http://www.pennystockcash.com